JOBS (PASTY) WHITE PEOPLE (WITH BAD TEETH) WON'T DO:

The National Health Service says there are over 11,000 open nursing jobs in England, and another 6,000 vacant positions across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The overburdened system, described by the British Red Cross as facing a "humanitarian crisis," already relies on 33,000 nurses from the EU. [...]

The shortage of workers cuts across sectors -- from agriculture to education -- and across skill levels. There aren't enough fruit pickers and there aren't enough doctors. [...]

"The government is putting politics above economics, which is quite a dangerous game," said Heather Rolfe, a researcher at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

Labor economists say that a radical decline in immigration would hurt the British economy.

The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government's fiscal watchdog, said that 80,000 fewer immigrants a year would reduce annual economic growth by 0.2 percentage points.

"To lose these people would be pretty tough and it would mean that some sectors might find it very difficult to survive," said Christian Dustmann, professor of economics at University College London.

Some EU workers, upset over political rhetoric and a lack of clarity about their legal status, are already leaving Britain. Net migration from the EU fell to 133,000 last year from 184,000 in 2015, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The impact is already being felt: The Nursing and Midwifery Council said that roughly 6,400 EU nurses registered to work in the U.K. in the year ended March, a 32% drop from the previous year. Another 3,000 EU nurses stopped working in the U.K.

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